Amazon World Zoo Park my amazon world review

stubeanz

Well-Known Member
15+ year member
hiya this is my first review on the forum ive been lurking and occasionaly post but this is my first proper post.
i recently went to isle of wight on holiday and whilst there decided to go to amazon world and isle of wight zoo (in another review).
first impressions were that it had good points and bad points, mostly bad points but then i spoke to the head keeper and had a chat, so afterwards decided to take another look with our chat in mind and took in alot more.
good points were that it has some very unusual stuff there that i havent seen before including tamandua, prehensile tailed porcupine, collared kingfisher (todiramphus chloris), night heron and sunbirds.
they also have the most armadillos and sloths ive seen in one zoo :eek: noted 3 banded armadillo, 9 banded armadillo and hairy armadillo and these apparently breed well there, i also counted 8 two toed sloths.
i liked the fact that they had so many species of toucan although i didnt find out wether these had bred or not. i also liked the open topped pacu, pirannah exhibit and wondered how many people have egged their friends on to put their hands in there lol
one thing to add is that they looked like they had a good educational building for such a small zoo and had alot of natural artifacts in the building aswel.

bad points i found were the way that most of the enclosures were made ... the outdoor enclosures looked like they were made from building site fences and deffinatly looked like they would hold in a charging tapir!
many of the enclosures i found were too small such as the lemur enclosures and the first kinkajou enclosures you see and that they also mixed some unusual species such as flamingos with egrets and ibis along with a few other small coastal speces that i cant remember the name of.
i noticed only one howler monkey not sure wether they have more but surely keeping one on its own didnt seem fair.

in the end i came to the conclusion that it had both good and bad points and ive heard they are building on another 4 acres so that should sort out the outside animals. they are also demolishing the secrets of the animals area inside and revamping it so that should improve it further and i can see this zoo really improving in the future.

a few more things to add are that they are currently looking to pair up the male tamandua, have put the two kinkajou in the first enclosure up for surplus and no longer use meerkat, ocelot and capybara in shows (i asked if they were going to be used after being suprised to see them on the list).
hope this was ok for my first review lol and sorry so any miss spelling as im dyslexic
stu
 
yes it was advertised in the zoo leaflet that they used capybara, ocelot and meerkats, turns out they did use them but last year when they were all hand reared but have got to big for this years shows, the show i watched they used a boa constrictor and a 3 banded armadillo which werent bad although it was more of a meet and greet and we were told that a keeper had hand reared the snake and thats why it was tame lol we both had a bit of a laugh at that (maybe thats why milksnakes are called milksnakes ;))
stu
 
Thanks for the review, I havent been for quite some time so its nice to have an update. I totally agree with you about the outdoor enclosure being rather small and some of them not strong enough to keep the animals in. Have there been any new enclosures lately, I know they built a new flamingo area, how does that look?

Again, thanks for the review.
 
not sure i saw a new enclosure, the flamingos i saw were in an enclosure similarly built to the tapirs with a small pool and shared with egrets, ibis and some small birds which cant remember the name of.
all of the flamingos were out on the grass and none were in the pool, if this was the new enclosure then i would say it was deffinaltly not suitable for them.
i actualy thought that the enclosures they were in may have been temporary after hearing they have purchesed more land.
stu
 
When I last went the flamingos were inside one of the tropical houses (the one straight after the 'aquarium' corridor) so it looks like that may be the new exhibit after all.
 
Thank you stubeanz for a very fair and honest review of amazon world. The new flamingo exhibit that is being discussed, no longer exhibits flamingo and is the new river section with the large fish exhibit. the flamingos have temperarily been moved out to the old wader aviaries. The old enclosures outside have all got plans but as you have already mentioned we are redeveloping the inside areas during this winter and its just about having the time and the finance to get around to the new projects.
 
thanks rob for the info i did wonder wether they were just there temporarily.
do you work at amazon world? if so do you know what they are looking to do on the new acres?
stu
 
Back
Top